著者

桜井 万里子

出版者

日本西洋古典学会

雑誌

西洋古典学研究 (ISSN:04479114)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.58, pp.1-11, 2010

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How prevalent were the Orphic mysteries in classical Athens? Important evidence for this question was discovered during the second half of the 20th century. In 1978 were published a set of bone tablets with graffiti-like letters of the fifth century BC. from Olbia. The Derveni Papyrus (DP) was found in 1962 from one of the tombs dated around the end of the fourth century near Derveni about twelve kilometers north of Thessaloniki, the editio princeps of which was published in 2006, almost fifty years after its discovery, as T. Kouremenos, G. M. Parassoglou and K. Tsantsanoglou, The Derveni Papyrus, Firenze, 2006. The editors date the papyrus between 340 and 320 BC, whereas the text itself on the papyrus is more difficult to date, but the content of the text is mostly supposed to suggest it is a Preplatonic commentary on the Orpheus theogony. A gold tablet from Hipponion in south Italy published in 1974 turned out to be from 400 BC., the oldest among the same kinds of tablets, and the words mystai and bakchoi in the text have convinced scholars of the Orphic religious significance of this and other gold tablets of the same type. Looking at the sites of the evidence on the map, we cannot suppress the impression that they are in marginal areas in the Greek world, or not in major poleis like Athens or Sparta. Were the Orphic Mysteries not popular in Athens? One paragraph on the deisidaimon in Theophrastos' Kharakteres, 16 persuaded me to assume private practice of the Mysteries by the orpheotelestai in Athens, but Plato's comment in the Republic 364d-e puzzled me as he wrote that agyrtai and manteis(orpheotelestai-like people) persuaded not only private individuals but some poleis. What did Plato mean by the word poleis ? Were there any poleis where the Orphic Mysteries were public ? Athens certainly could not be counted among such poleis. Col. XX of the Derveni Papyrus may help us attain a good understanding of how the Orphic Mysteries were performed in classical Athens. In this column two groups of initiates are contrasted: those who were initiated, participating in the public Mysteries, and those who were initiated in the Mysteries under the guidance of a private professional priest. The editors of the editio princeps of DP believe that both groups were meant to be initiates in the Orphic Mysteries, but I cannot agree with the editors' comment. I would like to propose my own opinion that the former are not initiates in the Orphic Mysteries but initiates in public mysteries like the Eleusinian Mysteries, while the latter are Orphic initiates. Col. XX may shed some light on the way in which the Orphic Mysteries were performed in Athens.